Thursday, June 29, 2006

Ivan's at White Oak

We said a sad goodbye to Ivan on Tuesday. Ivan was the rescue tiger that we were temporarily housing after he was confiscated from a private home. To read more about him go to the May Archives on my blog and scroll down to "Ivan's First Day".

There was a little confusion on the day - we thought he was leaving on Wednesday, the 28th. We found out on Monday evening (the 26th) that the driver wanted to be in Florida on Wednesday. Therefore, he had to leave on Tuesday. So, we just moved everything up a day. :) Luckily, the crate was already set up. We just hadn't tested it with Ivan yet - to see if he would go in it again (same crate he had been tranported in from his previous home to us). And, of course, he was acting all spooked and nervous about it every time he shifted in on Sunday and Monday. But we decided to give it a try. It never hurts to try, right?

Well, it took me and KH about 30 minutes to convince him to come inside Tuesday morning. And by convince, I mean lots of pleading, calling, bribing with food, etc. He's not stupid. He knew something was up. I mean, really, how often are we actually over that at 7am shifting him inside? (not very...our work day doesn't usually start until 7am). I have to say this though, once he decided to come inside, he came right in. He then shifted over to the holding unit with the crate and walked right on in like he'd been doing it his whole life (which, actually, he probably had been. His former owner used to take the tigers out and about to Renn Fairs too.)

KH shut the door behind him, I fed him part of his diet and we sat and waited for the transport guy to show up. It took a few hours. Ivan, meanwhile, was happily hanging out in his crate. That is, he was happy except whenever KH showed up. Poor KH...he always ends up being the bad guy. Ivan would chuff (a greeting) to me or anyone who wasn't KH. But when KH showed up Ivan roared (an expression of anger) at him. He knew who shut the door to the crate. And he wasn't happy about it. He was calm while he was loaded up (had to use a fork lift) into the refrigerator truck though.

We did receive a call from White Oak Wednesday morning to tell us that he had arrived safely. He was a little nervous though and they were going to leave him alone for awhile and let him get used to them. He'll be fine once he realizes that they're all nice people too. We would loved to have kept him but the building/exhibit he was housed in is scheduled to be demolished soon and we had no other place to put him. Besides, he gets to hang out in an awesome looking exhibit (with trees, hills, etc - much bigger than ours, I think) and be a companion to a 19 year old female tiger. He's a sweetheart though and we're going to miss him.